`ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE' : IT'S FAR MORE THAN A JOB, IT'S ... WHOOSH!Byline: Deb Acord Colorado Springs Colorado Springs, city (1990 pop. 281,140), seat of El Paso co., central Colo., on Monument and Fountain creeks, at the foot of Pikes Peak; inc. 1886. It is a year-round resort and a booming military, technological, and commercial city. Gazette Telegraph The hours are long. The pay is, well, you won't get rich. The customers can be demanding. But you can't beat the benefits in Francie Peterson's job. Untouched vistas of mountain and sky, fresh powder, the rush of chilled air across your face. As Peterson ends another long workday at the top of a mountain, she pauses to look down at the expanse of white snow and dark trees below her. ``Just another day at the office,'' she says before disappearing in a billowing bil·low n. 1. A large wave or swell of water. 2. A great swell, surge, or undulating mass, as of smoke or sound. v. bil·lowed, bil·low·ing, bil·lows v.intr. 1. cloud of snow. Peterson is director of the ski school A ski school is an establishment that trains skiers. The modern version of the ski school was invented by the Austrian ski pioneer Hannes Schneider in the early 1920s when he formalized instruction methods and established these methods as teaching principles for all ski instructors at Ski Cooper Ski Cooper is a small ski resort in Colorado, the ski area is less than 600 acres. It has one double, one triple, two poma lifts, and one carrot lift, a carrot lift is a rope toe with orange plastic "carrots" that a person can grab on to. , the smallest ski resort in Colorado, tucked into the Mosquito Range The Mosquito Range (elevation approximately 14,000 ft) is a high mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The peaks of the range form a ridge running north-south for approximately 40 miles (64 km) from southern Summit County on the north end, well away from the bustle bus·tle 1 intr. & tr.v. bus·tled, bus·tling, bus·tles To move or cause to move energetically and busily. n. Excited and often noisy activity; a stir. of the I-70 ski corridor. Despite the resort's size, it's thriving, and the job keeps her busy seven days a week during ski season The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. . But it's a job Peterson loves, and that love is reflected in 30 years of loyalty to a place where the slopes are so uncrowded you sometimes get the feeling you're the only one there. That solitude is a big part of the area's charm and one of the reasons Peterson has stuck around so long - since she was 9, actually, when her family moved to Leadville and she learned to ski a few years later. ``I've never wanted to do anything else,'' says Peterson, who doesn't like to divulge her age. ``There's something about skiing - I like the exercise, being outdoors, the movement, the snow, the freedom of it. The way you move down a slope, the wind in your face, the rhythm. It's magic.'' In the ski industry, Peterson's name is practically synonymous with synonymous with adjective equivalent to, the same as, identical to, similar to, identified with, equal to, tantamount to, interchangeable with, one and the same as Ski Cooper. She's been a skier there, a teacher and school director. Many of the people she trained have gone on to teach at some of the country's biggest ski resorts. Her style with students is gentle and her voice soft, so she stays close by, often skiing fluidly backward, watching the skier intently. Her gentle manner has helped many beginning skiers summon the confidence to ski, says Ski Cooper marketing director Anne Dougherty, who has known Peterson for 12 years. ``She has approached a lot of skiers and said, `Have you thought about a lesson?' I think she has saved a lot of relationships.'' Ski Cooper, hidden in the San Isabel National Forest San Isabel National Forest is located in central Colorado. The forest contains 19 of the states 54 fourteeners, peaks over 14,000 feet high, including Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. about 12 miles west of Leadville, is a no-frills, laid-back resort that caters to families. Peterson says it's been that way as long as she can remember. ``That camaraderie is part of the reason people keep coming back,'' she says. A Colorado native, Peterson learned to ski at 13, when she heard about free lessons at Cooper. By the time she was in high school, she had gotten into the habit of spending all of her time on the slopes of the resort, which was open only on weekends then. She joined the ski patrol A ski patrol is an organization that provides first aid and rescue services to skiers and participants of other snow sports, either at a ski area or in a backcountry setting. , and after high school she began to teach skiing. ``Bill Cooper (one of the driving forces behind Ski Cooper in the beginning) asked me to help him out one day, and I kept teaching through college.'' In 1974, Peterson started teaching full time and she's never stopped. She raised two children in nearby Buena Vista, and as Cooper expanded its hours, she committed more time to the ski area. Today, she lives from November through March in a log home west of Leadville, where she's joined by her husband, Carl, also a longtime instructor at Cooper, on weekends. In the off-season, Peterson returns to their home in Colorado Springs. For six ski-free months, she catches up with her family and prepares for the holidays she'll miss because of her job. Then she returns to the slopes. On a recent weekday morning, skiers at Cooper boot up in the rustic wooden lodge and head for the slopes. Peterson and another ski instructor ski instructor n → instructor(a) m/f de esquí ski instructor n → moniteur/trice de ski ski instructor ski n are ready for the mountain, too, but they won't get to ski on their own until day's end. It's a typical Cooper crowd: families, some of whom already are on spring break; groups of seniors; snowboarders in floppy hats; and lots of beginners, struggling to get used to the stiff boots and slippery skis. As the day begins, groups gather for lessons. Peterson marshals her 20 instructors and sets up the day, beginning with the children's program, Panda Patrol. The smallest skiers bounce out Verb 1. bounce out - bounce a ball so that it becomes an out baseball, baseball game - a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players; teams take turns at bat trying to score runs; "he played baseball in high school"; "there was a baseball of a building and head for the broad, smooth teaching slope nearby. Peterson hasn't seen teaching techniques change much in the nearly 30 years she's been teaching. ``Good teaching is good teaching.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: no caption (Skiing) |
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